A.M. Roundup: Circling the wagons for Hochul

Good morning! Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in the New York City area and Rhode Island today.

You might want to plan your cookouts for Friday or Saturday rather than Sunday — but rain or no rain, there’s no denying the beautiful sound of the words “three-day weekend.” If you’re headed downstate: The expected traffic headaches could be made worse by President Obama’s Westchester visit today. On Monday, the things you expect to be closed will be closed, and CDTA will run a Sunday/holiday schedule.

On to the headlines:

Cuomo and the Democratic Party are on the defensive to protect his running mate, Kathy Hochul, after The New York Times denied her its endorsement in the primary. (CapNY)

Hochul released a new video touting what she calls her progressive credentials. (CapCon)

Cuomo challenger Zephyr Teachout called out “Albany old-boy corruption” at a campaign stop Thursday in front of the state Education Building. (TU)

Evaluations released on Thursday showed 94 percent of the state’s teachers and 92 percent of principals were rated either “effective” or “highly effective” — prompting critics to ask how so many teachers could be regarded so highly while many of their students are performing poorly. (NYT)

Guess how much money Troy received in return for its support of the Rensselaer and East Greenbush casino proposals? Hint: You can count the amount on zero fingers. (TU)

An audit of a state program that helps finance affordable housing found that the program’s questionable selection and lax monitoring of construction projects has contributed to delays in building and rehabilitating homes, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office said. (NYT)

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has pushed to deny pension funds to two politicians convicted on corruption charges. (CapCon)

As the state Health Department reviews the $14.1 million sale of Maplewood Manor nursing home in Saratoga County, nervous public employees are retiring, resigning to start other jobs, transferring to other county departments or taking an unusual amount of sick time, according to county officials. (TU)

Trying to strike “a tender balance between transparency and discretion,” hundreds of personal items from the 1971 Attica prison uprising are being returned to family members. (TU)

As overseas wars wind down, local police forces across the country are on the receiving end of a surge of surplus military equipment. The Albany County Sheriff’s Department got a 17-ton “Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected” armored vehicle last year, which it has deployed mainly at community relations events. (TU)

In Schenectady, two key members of Mayor Gary McCarthy’s administration are retiring. (TU)

A stretch of vacant houses that gained nationwide notoriety when a photo of it appeared on a 2012 “Jeopardy!” episode referencing urban blight will fall Friday morning, part of the Sheridan Hollow Revitalization Project by Habitat for Humanity. (TU)

The Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce is preparing to become the first new tenant in Troy’s revamped Proctor’s Theatre. (TU)

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio strongly defended the city’s readiness to launch its massive pre-kindergarten program after the scathing report issued the day before by the city comptroller. (AP)

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy believes its legal fight with Apple over Siri, the innovative personal assistant and voice-recognition system first used in the iPhone 4S, is potentially worth $120 million. (TU)

Brendan Cheney writes that if Cuomo wants to crush it at the polls like Kirsten Gillibrand, Eliot Spitzer and Chuck Schumer, he’s going to have to pick up the pace. (CapNY)

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Akum Norder

46 Responses

“Evaluations released on Thursday showed 94 percent of the state’s teachers and 92 percent of principals were rated either “effective” or “highly effective” — prompting critics to ask how so many teachers could be regarded so highly while many of their students are performing poorly. (NYT)”
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Even the best teachers will have poor-performing students. I wonder if these same critics blame physicians because many of their patients have cancer or get heart attacks?

Obama visit – “It’s good to be the king”. He couldn’t care less about inconveniencing the little people.
Hochul – far from a shoo-in in the primary.
MRAP – looks good but pretty much useless. By the way, the state police have sismilar vehicles for their ninjas.
RPI patent fight – isn’t someone at RPI an IBM board member?

So Cuomo’s big education reform was to make every school district engage in a costly renegotiation and “reform” their evaluation system. The first results were finally made public (almost a year late) and the teachers are all wonderful while the kids are all failures on Crazy John King’s and Merryl Tuschie’s very expensive new Common Core tests. Since 2010 (when Cuomo took over), New York’s NAEP test results fell precipitously while other Northeast states remained near the top nationally. New York now trails states like Georgia and Kentucky–states we used to feel were backwards–on NAEP reult. So New Yorkers how are Cuomo’s and King’s reforms working for you? Time for change in state leadership–wouldn’t you agree?

What does it mean when a lieutenant governor says: “I will not take orders from the Governor”?
Isn’t that the lieutenant governor’s job?
Regardless, it would be great to see him on the ticket with Cuomo.

The deadline passed for the RSVP for Cuomo/Teachout debate. Cuomo didn’t have the dignity to reply. He does work for the people doesn’t he? The people have requested a debate. Since he won’t agree to debate his challenger, Zephyr Teachout, (who is listening to the people) has a link to ask Gov. Cuomo the questions you want the answers to. Here is the link: http://askcuomo.com/

Using Israel as an example of lax gun regulation and high ownership rates among civilians is silly. It is NOT so, NRA. The Jerusalem Post article says a gun owner only gets 50 bullets with a purchase of a weapon, in a life time. No coming back for more bullets and obviously no stockpiling of ammunition. By comparison to Israeli gun regulation, the NYS SAFE ACT is far more accommodating to gun enthusiasts.

A nine-year girl shooting a military weapon at a shooting range kills gun trainer.
You can’t make this stuff up.
While this is a tragic, dark event, satirist Andy Borowitz nails the absurdity of this event.http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report

“Evaluations released on Thursday showed 94 percent of the state’s teachers and 92 percent of principals were rated either “effective” or “highly effective” — prompting critics to ask how so many teachers could be regarded so highly while many of their students are performing poorly. (NYT)”
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Because – *GASP* – there’s more to why students fail other than just the teachers? Like, I dunno, maybe the students themselves?
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What’s next? Will these clowns demand the teachers literally start doing these kids homework or something?

Think the Jacobs Family, Buffalo residents who own Boston Bruins and Delaware North, gave Cuomo nearly $50K for nothing in return? Lets look at the facts and see if there might be any reason for this large campaign contribution:
1) Delaware North is the largest stadium concessionaire in the country.
2) The Buffalo Bills need a new stadium
3) Jacobs Family cannot buy the Bills because they would have to sell the Boston Bruins
4) Since they can’t buy the Bills and the Bills need a new stadium, rumor has it they would like to “help” the Bills by building a new stadium for them, and obviously they would be the concessionaire.
5) Who do you think will control the choice of which company builds this stadium?

JFCscoup… So you think the Jacobs are going to spend a billion dollars on a new stadium in order to get a few million a year in beer and pretzel sales? Terry Pegula will soon be the new owner of the Bills… keep in mind he already uses DN’s services for the Sabres…
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Looks like someone DID draw their own conclusion…

Darth,
I wish the NY Times would have indicated who those “critics” were. I suspect they aren’t anyone that thinks much about the issue of teacher quality. Eric Hanushek an economist at Stanford who has long been a leader in analyzing educational issues has estimated that replacing our least effective 5 to 7 percent of teachers with average (not whiz) teachers would raise US international test scores up to the levels of Canada and (sainted) Finland. So it would seem to me that identifying ineffective teachers and principals in the 6 to 8 percent range might be helpful. These results certainly are not the bloodbath that unions worried about. And for the record, teachers and principals, especially if they are new should be given the chance to improve, just not too long.

As a progressive, I’m heartened to see candidates proudly proclaiming their progressive credentials. If Teachout & Wu win, we’ve got true blue Progressives, as committed to taking on the 1% Corporate Elite as anyone. If Cuomo and/or Hochul win, at least they understand they must listen to progressives, & we’re likely to see some progressive legislation. I support Teachout & Wu, but I also understand those who support Cuomo & Hochul, who think they may be the most progressive Democrats we can get. And can we be united against Corporate-Owned Republicans after the primary?

@oneoldtimer: If you read the article on Obama’s Westchester visit, for a fundraiser, you’ll see his second stop is another fund raiser in Rhode Island. I wonder if Kuomo got invited to the Westchester fund raiser? There is no mention that I found anywhere, of him attending. That would be a major snub. But it looks like he’ll make the one in RI, probably trying his best to get all the photo ops he can with the POTUS. Please, would you take a picture with me. Or maybe the other way around, consider their current approval ratings in the polls, if they even believe in polls for truth.

@Grafmil – Republicans reflexively attack our President (who just happens to be black). They attack him for inconveniencing people when visiting NY; if he didn’t visit NY they would attack him for staying away.

CHESTER: read the NYS Constitution. They are elected separately and other than being a stand-in for Gov, the LG has no assigned responsibilities, but the two positions are completely independent. The LG is an elected official and has every right to ignore the Gov. The Constitution doesn’t make him a lackey of the governor. Key word here: elected by the people of NYS.

Hey Rensselaer and E. Greenbush. You may want to give Troy a call. That is if you are planning on having running water at your casino. Oh, and Rensselaer, how’s that over due water bill from a couple of years ago, doing?

A Kuomo/Wu ticket could lead to all kinds of fun and hijinx in Albany. First, with this definition of the duties of the Lt. Gov., from Balletpedia, Kuomo could make life difficult for Wu.
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“Official duties dictated to the lieutenant governor under the present state constitution are to serve as president of the State Senate, serve as acting governor in the absence of the governor from the state or the disability of the governor, or to become governor in the event of the governor’s death, impeachment or resignation. Additional statutory duties of the lieutenant governor are to serve on the Court of Impeachments, the State Defense Council, and on the Board of Trustees of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Under Article IV, Section 6 of the state constitution, the lieutenant governor serves as the presiding officer of the Senate, but only casts a vote to break a tie among the regular members. She has such other responsibilities and duties as the governor shall assign.”
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Secondly, would Kuomo ever dare to leave the State for even a day. Imagine Wu with a list of items he might initiate with one of Kuomo’s favorite tools, the Message Of Necessity, if Kuomo is out of State and he is the de facto Governor. Who knows, the Republicans in the Assembly might decide to go along with some of Wu’s ideas. Then add any progressives, and a disgruntled Senate, it could be interesting. Wu is intelligent enough to muster as much support as he can, in advance. I know that this scenario is very unlikely, but Wu might want to consider the list of duties that Kuomo is dreaming up, just in case. But personally, Astorino/Moss 2014!!!

Kirsten: I hate to tell you but the world is full of “men” (in quotes because their membership in the human race is up for debate) who think it makes their penises grow if they say something snarky about your body. They still think that women were put on earth for their amusement. In fact, if you look closely, at least two of these “men” showed up in this blog. I apologize for their infantile ramblings and the hair on their palms.

As Kuomo persists with his ads slandering Astorino, the media needs to question Kuomo on this matter, under his tenure, and why projects are approved by management were deemed not feasible by the staff of the agency. Could there be a correlation between those particular projects and Kuomo’s campaign donor list? Uh maybe.
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“In examining the fund’s awards over more than five years, between April 2008 and last December, the auditors found that projects representing about 4,400 housing units had experienced construction delays of at least six months because of the management of the state housing agency, Homes and Community Renewal, which administers the program. A key problem, the auditors said, was the agency’s poor choice of projects, including some deemed “infeasible” by its own staff.”

“The provider headed by Ari Schwartz in recent years acquired Livingston Hills, a nursing home facility in Hudson, and the Golden Living Lexington nursing home in Lexington, Mass. This year, employees at the Lexington property threatened to go on strike to protest steep pay cuts implemented by Zenith and resident safety concerns, according to reports.”
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Cuts in State Medicaid payments have lead to the necessity to sell Saratoga’s Maplewood Manor Nursing Home. If it is sold to Zenith, you can bet that the monthly cost will soar. In our area you are looking at a range of $8500 to $10,000 a month for a skilled nursing facility, and I would think it is higher in the Capitol District. So as Kuomo touts svings, 320 County employments are scrambling in hope that they can get themselves situated to continue earning a living wage, and retain their level of benefits, and in the case of non-vested employees, hold on to the years they have invested, planning to have the retirement benefits the job offered, when they were hired. But ask Kuomo, he will tell you how much he cares about the working class and their concerns. Another example of empty words and negative actions. He just doesn’t care at all about anyone who doesn’t have deep pockets, and/or can’t advance his egomaniacal agenda. Astorino/Moss 2014!!!

Notice, in the Attica pictures, that there is a “sash” saying executioner. The hostage were lined up on top of those elevated walkways between the 4 yards, each assigned an executioner. In the cover up, the cause of death was listed as wound from gunshot(probably not the exact wording, but the final conclusion). In fact many of the hostages were stabbed, and their throats cut, which would have been the COD, had the NYSAP assault not been botched, by poor planning, and execution. As I have said before here, the Corrections Officers had at least three-quarters of the facility, and probably more like 90% back under control, the first morning. They were about to take back D Block and D Block Yard, when the wisdom of the Administration ordered them to withdraw, and wait until the brain trusts in Albany arrived, and came to the rescue. There would quite probably have been injuries, and possibly a few deaths, had the COs been allowed to do their job, but it would have been far less horrendous than the 43 deaths, courtesy of the Superintendent, a political appointee position, and the political appointees at the DOC headquarters in Albany. One of the employee deaths occurred at the onset of the riot, and there were some inmate deaths that occurred before the “retaking” of the facility. Even today, it always seems that the minute the fearless leaders in Albany get involved, it turns into a total debacle. But, had the COs moved forward, they would have been handling the incident before the inmates had gotten the opportunity to get better organized, and more had joined, or been forced to join, the riot. And the COs had achieved there retaking without one shot being fired, before they were told to withdraw.

And I doubt family from either side will have any “tender” memories, as the State returns items that are 40+ years old. Most likely it will only opens old wounds, and bring back old pain and heartbreak.